Poll: Crumbling Michigan roads No. 1 issue for voters

12:04 PM, May 25, 2014

Working on patching and smoothing out large pothole areas on Northwestern Highway in Southfield on Saturday, March 29, 2014, are city of Southfield maintenance workers Tony Rasmussen, 57, of Southfield, left, Jim Polk, 62, of Inkster and Maxine Halperin, 50, of Southfield. Eric / Eric Seals/Detroit Free Press

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LANSING — Fixing pothole-ravaged roads is now the No. 1 issue for Michigan voters, but they are divided on how to pay for the improvements, according to an exclusive poll done for the Detroit Free Press/WXYZ-TV (Channel 7) and our statewide media polling partners.

The emergence of roads as the top priority marks a big shift since the recent Great Recession when jobs and the economy were consistently rated as most important.

When 600 likely voters surveyed by EPIC-MRA of Lansing were given a list of nine issues — that also included things like controlling government spending and keeping taxes low— and then were asked to pick their top three in order of importance, a total of 63% rated fixing roads and bridges among their big three issues — with more putting roads as their No. 1 over any other issue. The next closest was improving education quality and funding, which a total of 51% of voters ranked among their top three.

“They should fix the roads before they fix anything,” said Diane Burns of Charlotte, in Eaton County, whose mother participated in the poll.

And if the state ends up with any surplus money to spend, roads again was chosen as job one by respondents at 51%, compared with 27% who chose education. When respondents’ first and second choices for spending the surplus were weighted and combined into one set of numbers, roads came in first at 39%, followed by K-12 education at 26%, and a personal tax cut at 14%.

While voters are OK with spending surplus funds on the roads, a multiyear surplus that in January was estimated at $971 million has largely evaporated, based on this month’s revenue-estimating conference.

The survey, conducted May 17-20, also reflects a mood shift from a February EPIC-MRA poll when education was the No. 1 beneficiary for surplus money at 38%, and roads were second at 36%.

The poll comes as the Senate prepares to possibly vote Tuesday on a major gas tax hike to pay for roads. Republican Gov. Rick Snyder has been pushing since 2012 for revenue measures that will put another $1.2 billion a year or more toward fixing and maintaining Michigan’s roads and bridges — so far without success.

But if the spring thaw that fractured pavement has solidified the view that road improvements are badly needed — the focus on roads was consistent across political party lines and in all regions of the state — it has created no consensus on how to pay for the work.

“The roads are in terrible shape and we need to do something about them,” said Jane Eglinton, a retired teacher who lives in Algonac in St. Clair County and participated in the poll.

Eglinton said she would support hiking the sales tax one percentage point, to 7% — one of several measures that has been discussed in the Legislature — if the extra money went to roads. But she doesn’t want a higher gas tax, a measure that could be pushed in the Senate as early as Tuesday.

“People have to drive to get to work,” and “people are stretched,” Eglinton told the Free Press.

The state House passed legislation this month that would raise more than $400 million for roads through a raft of measures, including replacing Michigan’s 19-cent-per-gallon tax on regular unleaded fuel and 15-cent-per-gallon tax on diesel fuel with a 6% wholesale tax applied to both. Another bill would earmark one percentage point of Michigan’s 6% use tax to roads, and others would double permit fees and fines for overweight trucks.

Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, only introduced the substitute legislation related to the higher fuel tax on Wednesday, after the live operator telephone poll — which has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points — was completed.

“My guess is that would be a tough sell,” Bernie Porn, president of EPIC-MRA, said of Richardville’s wholesale gas tax proposal.

Porn noted voters balked at a 6-cent-per-gallon fuel tax increase in a poll last year. Michiganders appear ready to pay more to fix the roads, but “not too much more,” he said.

Cathy Gretzler, a retired psychologist in Brighton who participated in the poll and, like Eglinton, identified roads as the No. 1 issue, said potholes this spring are worse than she has ever seen them.

Gretzler said she’d like the Legislature to put better controls on how much weight is moving over Michigan roads and extract more revenues from heavy trucks.

“It seems like the vehicles that are causing the most damage should pay more of the cost,” she said.

Another road funding proposal, which requires a constitutional amendment and a statewide vote, would increase Michigan’s 6% sales tax by one percentage point and dedicate the extra revenues to roads.

That’s the measure Eglinton said she would support, because it would spread the pain around to everybody and wouldn’t apply to essentials such as food and medicine needed by those on low incomes.

Of those polled, 52% like that sales tax proposal and 44% are opposed.

Two other possible funding methods — toll roads and one that would replace fuel taxes with mileage-based motorist fees — were panned.

Only 38% favored converting some interstate freeways to toll roads, while 55% were opposed.

Mileage-based road fees fared even worse, with 77% calling it a bad idea.

Those surveyed were asked to name their top three issues, in orders of importance. When those answers were weighted into a single list, improving roads came in first at 22%, followed by improving education quality and funding at 17%, improving the economy and creating more jobs at 16%, controlling government spending at 11%, controlling crime and drugs at 9%, keeping state and local taxes low at 8%, and providing universal, affordable health care, also at 8%.

The partisan breakdown of those surveyed was 41% Democratic, 37% Republican, and 19% Independent. Cell phones made up 20% of the sample.